As the field of combat and commercial weaponry expands, numerous add-on enhancements have become available for attachment to standard firearms. For example, the well-known M16 weapon system, includes a mil-std 1913 dovetail rail extending along the top of the upper receiver. This rail provides a convenient mounting point for many types of accessories such as tactical lights, night vision devices, laser sighting modules, reflex sights, fore grips, and bipods.
Field modification of weapons is critical in combat situations. As such, standardized attachment assemblies have been developed to allow quick and easy removal and mounting of accessory devices relative to the dovetail rails. Examples of such attachment assemblies are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,276,988 and 7,493,721.
Although some needs have been met with such prior art devices, significant performance issues remain. In particular, manufactured rails having even slight imperfections are not well accommodated by the prior art. They are not well secured and repeated shock due to firing can lead to degradation and eventual failure of the rail/interface system. Accordingly, a need exists for a weapon interface mounting device that performs well regardless of the quality of the rail with which it interfaces.
Although prior art devices posses an indexing system, accessories mounted using such devices nevertheless require adjustment due to residual slack between the rail and the indexing geometry. Clearly, a need also exists for a weapon interface mounting device that is capable of automatic indexing with 100% repeatability that requires no active adjustment by the user.
Prior art devices do not attempt to constrain the rail in all three orthogonal dimensions. This, together with the inherent imperfect manufacturing of such rails, are also responsible for amplification of residual slack that occurs during the firing process, thereby leading to inevitable mechanical failure. A need exists for a weapon interface mounting device that constrains the rail in all three orthogonal dimensions as well as having the capability to fully compensate for residual slack in all dimensions.